today's news on the week's top stories on lawyers clashes across northern ireland head for a week. to fly the flag over city hall only just. the french president orders tougher security at home following the country's days old intervention in mali. supreme court. intensifying speculation over the leader's health and the future prospects of his country. and we. should shut down guantanamo bay still rings hollow with more than one hundred sixty people held

. without charge or trial. it is a pleasure to have you with us here and just in time for the weekly with me. at least twenty nine police officers were injured on saturday in belfast as violent loyalist clashes in northern ireland now reach into a sixth week of the unrest was triggered by the belfast city council's decision to fly the union flag above city hall now for only eighteen days a year and the latest clashes broke out after about a thousand unionists marching on city hall were attacked by locals in a catholic area and police were forced to use water cannons and plastic bullets to

disperse the angry mob artie's sarah ferguson following the protests right at the same. clashes breaking out once again on the streets of belfast you can see the police are just trying to push back the crowds a. huge number of police rather sadly sites like this becoming all too common knowledge isn't going to have been helped by the fact that many feel inflammatory political language has helped to whip up the tensions here on the straight. recreational rioting that's what some people are calling it. you can see the fate. of rocks the police responding with the worst economy when the sun. had been about right but the scale and intensity of that. much much more than just that he students the director of the east belfast mission group is working with young protesters to try to calm the tensions some kids are

doing it for fun or doing it for more sinister motives in terms of control terms of par in terms of ego some are doing it because it's sexier than the playstation you know young girls are doing it because girls even with young children we seen on the streets here i don't think a fully realized what their actions can result in but they're just right there are in some ways having a laugh and yet there's nothing funny about it one of the protesters tell us in. just a one hour flight back home owner and pays to get off their backs aids peter robinson least you're not silly not them he was the one that had to start. the day forty minutes for us to come out on the street to protest against. the nice and on his back save maybe take all the flak he's called was rubbish and. you know but when he wanted also it on the streets for his own actions we can make for he think the

protesters would accept any kind of compromise when it comes to this shit when the flag of. to fly. we know we're not going to get back up to normal action because the majority really. uneasy knew this poor and now holds to try to reengage politically that we're told look small needs to be done they'll be really quick fixes in. i think there's a different things need to happen economic. investment political investment community investment by and by all the stakeholders in these communities to try to . drive to fisheries are a blight here it's a fall there's been a one hundred people arrested more than sixty police officers injured and millions of pounds spent in policing these riots and in lost business. these riots have been

highly localized damage has already been far reaching. this is a new generation putting back onto the streets of belfast it's a far cry from the dark days of northern ireland's complex that doesn't make it any less troubling. and my colleague spoke to jason walsh a journalist for the christian science monitor he says the unrest is simply down to changing demographics. the protests. despite the appearance of some groups such as the ulster peoples form no one is entirely sure exactly what it is that the protesters want northern ireland in general and belfast in particular have traditionally been protestant unionist loyalist or if you like to put areas and the recent census results should northern ireland's no longer has a unionist one it's more a sort of fifty fifty situation i mean what can city whole do is got itself into a real rock and a hard place isn't it if they overturn the decision it's going to look like more

brule taken of potentially cause a flare up on the other side this stuff going to get over this account of they certainly can't undo the decision. first or but it's deep highly unlikely that irish nationalists councillors would vote to raise the flag and second of all even if they could be convinced to do so in the name of public order i think it would look very bad for the council to. constitute a block done in the case of violence so what's your prognosis which way it's going to go you know over the coming months is it going to come that it was are going to go from bad to worse it's very difficult to say just today we've had and if not actually do we get drawn into the into the world when we could get much much worse . obviously also a suspect device so i just wonder if you have viable small explosive was true in light of belfast today it's not yet clear who planted. these are not good signs. watching r.t.

and president francois hollande has raised the terror level in france the middest growing military action in west africa at least eleven civilians including three children were killed in airstrikes and fighting since the french intervention was announced just on friday and the first french casualty in mali came on saturday when the pilot of a helicopter shot down by islamist rebels was killed in the first task of troops in mali was to help the government regain control of the key central town of kona the neighbors of the west african state are also sending troops to help battle militants francois hollande said the military operation in mali will continue quote for as long as necessary but france based independent journalist robert i harness so he says that the country's foreign policy ultimately contradicts itself i think as long as the french people are to buy the consequences of this sort of intervention they generally favorite this as a great military tradition in france and they've grown accustomed to interfering other people's countries and if you. need it starts to get nasty i think you'll

find they'll be a very quick a reversal of public opinion the sort of islamic extremists they're very tough soldiers and they've grown tougher over the last twenty years and if france starts to find these people have been armed as a result of the intervention in libya and all the arms of the swilling about in the in the sahara as a result of that intervention ironically instigated by france then they're going to find it's a very dangerous place to intervene in mali as requested help and they get it instantly when the central african republic requested help from the french forces there they were told are no we can't interfere to tell any particular regime were neutral. it to do even if you had wanted to destroy the credibility of france and the western countries over the last five or ten years you couldn't have done a better job by the absurd contradictions of what they do. also this week two

french soldiers died in somalia during a failed mission to rescue a hostage she was also killed by the raid began hours after french troops began the intervention to get rid of the islamist rebel groups in control of the northern part of the country and there are currently nine french people held hostage across northern africa. now the people of venezuela still in suspense over the health of their leader hugo chavez who's recovering from cancer surgery in cuba earlier this week tens of thousands held a rally at a symbolic inauguration ceremony as a chavez official swearing in date was postponed indefinitely by the country's supreme court pepe escobar from asia times online believes that with a protracted absence of the leader and there's a severe power struggle underway. chevy's war is not a monolithic saying like there exists a communist party in china there at least four or five different factions fighting

for power and this is a lot of problems a few we have an unsteady situation in terms of chavez house because there will be an eternal struggle for power inside there is more him at the same time we're going to have more possibilities of foreign interference trying to let you know as louvered this process and i mean specially our friends in washington all the news he will see an opening well maybe this is the beginning of the end of just let's get it out. meanwhile despite its uncertain future prospects venezuela has been increasingly attracting those in search of a better life as a couple found out with no end in sight to the financial crisis many are finding refuge in countries with an alternative economic model or some business well that represents hope and new opportunities the bolivarian republic may be a surprising choice after all it's been ranked as one of the most corrupt nations

in the hemisphere whose murder rate exceeds that of iraq still the world bank says venezuela draws the largest number of immigrants after argentina with one million flocking here in two thousand and ten alone. and get weaker rosa is one of them after decades of struggling in the u.s. she decided to start anew in venezuela. and that come to you completely alone you go that trying to find a new way to really learn nobody helps you that nobody in caracas the helping hand came from the government a cheap loan to kickstart a small business and subsidies that enabled her to purchase this home that's why rosa and others like her see the country as a place where. you can move more freely you have more opportunities. robust economic growth and increased spending on social projects to help create those opportunities having the state on your side in terms of the benefits is

a huge thing because you don't have to worry about your basic necessities everyone has the right to universal free health care quality health care education at all levels the government provide subsidies to start up small businesses medium sized businesses that do the same in terms of housing to help people if they're coming from a country where the economic crisis is so bad they've been cutting all those benefits but as well it begins to look like a paradise that may certainly seem to be the case for those on the bottom president to go child has helped bring the poverty rate down from fifty percent and he took office to roughly thirty one percent and the u.n. says venezuela has the lowest level of inequality in latin america. it's one child has die hard supporters among the poor but what about the rich critics say chavez's ilya needing the wealthy many of whom turned out in droves to vote for his opponent in october closely contended election twenty first century socialism hasn't helped us it is her job as opponents blame his so-called socialist

experiment for problems like limited foreign investment they say that it's driving businessmen and entrepreneurs out of the country. by daniel year g.'s himself a young businessman disagrees after spending twelve years in barcelona he decided to return to venezuela not just for the economic benefits he says but for the chance to partake in a different sort of future order there are two very different political forces in this country one monster move towards capitalism the other is on the path of socialism in the october election the people of venezuela voted to make the country greener fairer to create more opportunities i mean in this regard many venezuelans like myself have decided to return home and so they do showing that for some gambling in venezuela system may be worth the risk you see catherine of r.t. venezuela. and i still to come on the program here on our t.v. eleven years of indefinite detention without charge or trial or take an in-depth

look at the infamous guantanamo bay facility which remains open despite barack obama's long running pledge to shut it down. votes were put on what some experts fear could be a pretext for intervention into syria as the nation's alleged uranium stockpiles fall under the western microscope and more on that and other stories so often this right. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. released be two language. one programs and documentaries in arabic

it's all here on all t.v. reporting from the world talks about six of v.i.p.'s interviews intriguing stories for you. in troy arabic to find out more visit our big don't all t.v. dog called. a quarter past the hour moscow time this is. in just a few months the u.s. military in afghanistan will hand over leadership of combat operations to local

forces and refocus on assisting them in the decision came off the discussions this week between the u.s. and afghan presidents sparking doubt over promises to pull american troops out of the chaotic country and brian becker from the seawall coalition believes the afghan government is in no position to kind of take full control the american government is sort of caught in a paradox it didn't want to give up afghanistan it wanted to use it as a strategic base but can't win a military victory they have to begin to draw down whether they will leave completely i don't think so so now you have cars i hear in washington meeting with obama he is extremely vulnerable but he is seen within the afghan population as nothing but an extension of the power of the occupiers and the afghan people like all occupied people resent the occupiers and they resent those who are there collaborators so karzai from time to time sounds like a nationalist he stands up any howls

a little bit against american atrocities again trying to play for domestic consumption but at the end of the day karzai is seen as just that is a collaborator with the occupation a very rich collaborator so he may have a way an exit plan of his own scripted out but i think he knows that without foreign occupation his government's days are very very precarious. now one of the world's most notorious detention facilities marked its eleventh grim anniversary this week with more than one hundred sixty people still being held without charge or trial the closure of guantanamo bay is a promise to barack obama has so far failed to keep what small calls to stop indefinite detention of largely died down in the u.s. we even torture appears to be gaining acceptability is not he's gone h. a can explain. president obama's call to look forward not backward has resulted in attempts to sweep the past under the rug including some of his own promises i

intend to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that colonel morris davis was a chief prosecutor at guantanamo and a george w. bush who later became a vocal critic of the practices there and strongly supported president obama's pledge to shut down the prison he says the perception of guantanamo in the u.s. has come a long way since two thousand and eight when he was a burning and highly controversial issue with the nation demanding action he gets a free pass on i mean the public largely could care less the mainstream media now here in the us. you know is more interested in car dash and then they are and what happens at guantanamo. so who's going to challenge it if we're looking for the biggest threat to america right now she's right there her name is kim carr does she in. america has moved on and so has its perception of torture polls by the american red cross show the majority of americans now find torture acceptable sixty percent

of young people agree whereas four years ago portugal's largely condemned in the us . hollywood has arguably contributed to that evolution of public opinion in the movie zero dark thirty day. or trade the information that led to the capture. and killing of osama bin laden was obtained through enhanced interrogation techniques or torture and in fact that's simply not true the actual information was obtained through a report based interrogation techniques the government classified everything related to its torture practices which allows politicians pundits and filmmakers the freedom to press rates all kinds of myths although a slew of washington insiders including the senate intelligence committee point out how torture has proved to be ineffective but in america it's often fiction not facts that make history this is more important than reality this is the movies

where americans learn their history and today the history in the making is the drone strikes this amounts to the administration executing people without due process often in absolute secrecy in foreign lands with a remote control but will obama's drones generate as much of a backlash as one tunnel did for george w. bush that we've now got have a generation that only knows the post nine eleven era. where things like guantanamo and the warrantless wiretapping that's all they've ever known you know for decades now and i think it's just become an accepted part of life unfortunately judging by how the guantanamo controversy evolved here is what may transpire with regard to drone the urgency of the issue will subside in the u.s. because there will be no american for dying there will be no strong public movement . there may even be a movie or two out of the top no logical keep the withdrawal and once the

controversy dies down it will become the new normal and americans will move on. in washington i'm going to stop. and earlier my colleague kevin allen spoke with more that could of that's who was held in guantanamo i wanted what turned out to be groundless accusations he was released after the u.s. military failed to force him to confess to crimes he never committed but he says some others there were may not to be quite so like if you are not a terrorist they want life to try to make you or terrorists in i should example i must say if i should agree that i am be a member of. that i did fight with taliban together against american soldiers between the war. and i should i should sign papers that i am be a member of al qaeda what were the charges first. there was no no reason for just the. pakistani people they sold me for bounty or through some dollar to the americans. said this man he's a terrorist and very soon few months later they found out that i'm innocent and

they want me that i'm going to sign papers they forced me to sign papers that i should agree that i'm be a member of al qaeda because because they didn't have anything against me in their hands and you're saying for you how do they force you say what were they doing to shoot to do that. they used torture techniques like waterboarding and electroshocks they saw after this i'm going to sign and agree that i'm being a member of a kaiser and every time i refused to sign they tried another kind of torture they saw i walked one time can you tell us the worst thing one of a better word that you saw going on there. example i saw. i had used to be just nine or twelve years or childs and. i think it

was the worst i saw over there. there was not treating better than us i didn't saw that they getting tortured but. to see children in the same camp it was better for me and also i saw people they got killed on the torture the bigger portion of the. kill so. i mean i have seen many things during this five years many thinks this is just a couple of those how do you feel after what you've been through in guantanamo through no fault of your own how does it make you feel as a human being. of course nobody can be happy after after all this happened. i'm trying to. fight against torture. more than twenty.

people. just want to force. the people of. warnings. to go outside their daughter. and a thirteen year old boy has traveled. across the border. without any suspicion on the voyage. it's good to have you with us here on r.t. today new round of diplomatic efforts to solve the ongoing syrian crisis has failed to reach a breakthrough and the international media. reiterated this week there can be no military solution to the conflict and moscow again voiced its support for a political transition adding that president assad's departure cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the war meanwhile on the ground the rebels seized

a large base in the north for opposition fighters out of the suburbs of the capital damascus western experts claim the government might be hiding up to fifty tons of raw uranium enough to roughly make five nuclear bombs and other recent fears the regime may not control its massive stockpiles of chemical weapons. fall into the hands of islamic extremists some say that's just one side of the story. there's a lot of noise about it there was a bombing in two thousand and seven the israeli jets bombed the site in syria claiming that it is a nuclear site there was no indication yes the i.a.e.a. visited the site the i.a.e.a. said that there were traces of you're a normal of depleted uranium but they did not confirm that there was any quantity or at least you know this huge quantity that is being publicized i mean they're saying fifty tons of uranium this is this is i don't know where they come up with a number. i did some research and it appears that they came up with

a number because they they they they are coming up with the story that this site that was there that was bombed in two thousand and seven would actually require fifty tons that doesn't mean that the syrians actually have fifty tons and that doesn't mean that the site is actually for a nuclear program the syrian central government was able to control more than past six months there is an advance of the syrian army and the syrian official police and they are controlling most of the country there are only some areas in the countryside where rebel fighters are in some areas in the countryside where the syrian army withdrew from these areas because they thought that these areas were not important strategically but overall this is central government under the leadership of president assad controls most of the syrian territory obviously it's difficult because there are many fighters infiltrating from outside syria there are many a lot of money being infiltrated being pumped into syria to these rebel groups by neighboring country especially by by turkey by qatar by other european and by

the united states there is a sponsorship of these terror groups this is a thousands of russian opposition activists have marched in moscow protesting against the law banning u.s. citizens from adopting russian children. without them. the protesters are demanding that the e.u. the authorities abolish the law passed me sleep which bans americans from adopting russian children now this button is part of the russian lawmakers response to the money to be act passed recently in the united states which gives the green light for sanctioning russian officials suspected there in the states of why leading human rights of the reason why russian lawmakers chose to balance from adopting russian children is due to the meaning pieces of lobby usually sometimes even deaths of russian kids after they were adopted and brought to the united states in

fact the whole issue adoption has been quite a problem between russia and the united states for several years now and officials in moscow say it's not only the cases of abuse themselves but also the lack of a proper legal reaction from american of gordie's including the lack of heavy jail sentences which could have prevented these cases from happening again so authorities say that banning americans from adopting russian kids is actually aimed at protecting them and it's fair to say that they do have quite a large number of supporters in society in russia just recently of why the russian girl in her blog online wrote a personal letter to president putin for signs the bill in the end asking him to change his mind to abolish the slaughter and she explained it by saying that in many cases the orphans which are being adopted by americans and many foreigners but americans in this case they are disabled and they are simply not able to receive

the proper medical attention here in russia and we both already heard from the president's press secretary to me that he was going to said that i was going to put in the will review this walk post even though it's not an official request also right before the end of last year one of the russians newspapers managed to gather . around one hundred thousand signatures now protesting this law and under the deep creek off of the president the parliament also thanks to review this protest we'll see how it goes of course maybe supporters and maybe those more i guess that it's quite a dividing issue now in russia side. so you could present reporting right there now are still to come in the program but of banking to find out more about the secret meetings held in boston global economic decisions are being made details of that in just a couple of minutes here on our.